With a "planted" feeling while cornering/descending at high speeds and incredibly smooth ride over bumps, this bike is at least as fast as it looks, and yet just as comfortable as it is fast.

While this bike has plenty of bling, all of it is intentional, truly functional, and adds to the bottom line ride experience of the bike.

As always, we place the rider's Fit First above other aspects (color, brand of favorite pro rider, what your friends ride, etc.) of a bike.

"If the bike don't Fit, you will probably just quit......"

Marty's Large-sized 3T Strada fits him PERFECTLY and even offers him room for future adjustments. Yet he never even test rode a 3T Strada in the bike "shopping" process. No test ride for a high-end bike purchase? Sounds like bike shop heresy you say? Allow us to explain......

Let's assume you are shopping for a new mid-range road, gravel, MTB, or Triathlon bike and you take 10 test rides of 10 randomly selected bikes all in the $3,500 - $7,000 range, and with the following distribution of variables:

During the test ride process, which probably spans multiple days/weeks, how will you discern ALL possible variables to determine which is the best bike for you, not to mention the best fitting bike for you?

Back to our original question: How did we know Marty's 3T Strada would fit him so extremely well without taking a single test ride? We started in our studio with Step 1: Bike Fit. For us, that means 2-3 hours of cutting-edge, Watts-Based Dynamic Fitting, utilizing our Purely Custom Fitting Bike (aka Mechanical Bull.....). In an IBB Fit Session, Kirk and Charity first address the cleats/pedals/shoes interface, then focus on saddle choice/tilt. Next we move into the fun part - making dynamic saddle/bar stack/reach changes while the rider pedals (and suffers a little.....) under a controllable load. Lastly we confirm crank length by testing out different length cranks at equivalent wattages.

The next step in our process is the SPEC'ing process which includes formatting the rider's new found fit coordinates (from step 1) into bike size and geometry as well as stem length, handlebar geometry, crank length, saddle choice, gearing, wheel/tire choice, etc.... This can take anywhere from 45 minutes up to hours or even weeks to think about, consider, ponder, digest, and ultimately decide. As leading field experts, and with international reputation, we are best in the business at spec'ing bikes within the framework of proper bike fit coordinates being the backdrop of our spec'ing decisions.

The Final Step in the IBB Process is the Build Process. Who else do you want building up your precisely tuned machine other than the most detail-oriented experts with the most experience, passion, and mechanical know-how you could possible find?! In Bike Builds, there is no such thing as a small or unimportant detail, and we take the time and care to build your bike up as if it were our very own. Browse our gallery of customer bikes, visit our shop, or give us a call and you will quickly discover our high level of passion, competence, experience, and commitment to excellence.

While the gearing of a 1X setup on a triathlon race bike does not work for everyone, it's hard to argue with the simplicity that a single front ring offers. Wide range 11-speed cassettes such as SRAM's 10-42 make riding 1X an option worth considering with approximately the same range found on a 52/36 double crank with 11-28 or 11-30 rear cassette.

The gear ratio of a 48-10 (4.8) is equivalent to riding downhill on a 53-11 (4.82) which is a decent-sized gear for most triathletes.

At the low end of the range, a 48-42 (1.14) is nearly equivalent to riding up steep hills on a 34-30 (1.13) or 36-32 (1.125)

Increasing the front Ring to a 50T gives these ratios:

50-10 (5.0) is equivalent to a whopping 55-11 (5.0) for downhills, while a 50-42 (1.19) is nearly equivalent to a 34-29 (1.17), 34-28 (1.21), or 36-30 (1.20)

However, the spacing BETWEEN gears may leave something to be desired for some of us......